The following press release was issued by Stony Brook University, who led the collaboration highlighted below. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory played a prominent role in this energy research.

Brookhaven Lab staff scientist Dong Su of the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) used a dedicated Hitachi Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope to generate atomic-scale images of the nanoparticle clusters synthesized by Alexander Orlov’s group at Stony Brook. Assistant scientist Yan Li of the Lab’s Computational Science Center led efforts to provide a detailed characterization of the gold nanoparticles’ structural, electronic, and spectroscopic properties using first-principles computational methods. Parts of these calculations were carried out using the CFN’s advanced computer cluster.

The collaboration between Stony Brook and Brookhaven Lab will continue to advance this nanoparticle research through a 2012 Seed Grant.

SBU-Led Research Reveals Nanotechnology Simplifies Hydrogen Production for Clean Energy

Researcher says project is first ever demonstration of the potential of using metal nanoparticles to make fuel from water

November 26, 2012

This diagram shows the good agreement between the optical spectra of mixed gold nanoclusters obtained through computation (dashed red line) and the experimental results measured with ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (black line).

STONY BROOK, NY, November 20, 2012 – In the first-ever experiment of its kind, researchers have demonstrated that clean energy hydrogen can be produced from water splitting by using very small metal particles that are exposed to sunlight. In the article, “Outstanding activity of sub-nm Au clusters for photocatalytic hydrogen production,” published in the journal Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, Alexander Orlov, PhD, an Assistant Professor of Materials Science & Engineering at Stony Brook University, and his colleagues from Stony Brook and Brookhaven National Laboratory, found that the use of gold particles smaller than one nanometer resulted in greater hydrogen production than other co-catalysts tested.

“This is the first ever demonstration of the remarkable potential of very small metal nanoparticles [containing fewer than a dozen atoms] for making fuel from water,” said Professor Orlov. Using nanotechnology, Professor Orlov’s group found that when the size of metal particles are reduced to dimensions below one nanometer, there is a tremendous increase in the ability of these particles to facilitate hydrogen production from water using solar light. They observed a “greater than 35 times increase” in hydrogen evolution as compared to ordinary materials.

In order to explain these fascinating results, Professor Orlov collaborated with Brookhaven National Lab computational scientist Dr. Yan Li, who found some interesting anomalies in electronic properties of these small particles. Professor Orlov noted that there is still a tremendous amount of work that needs be done to understand this phenomenon. “It is conceivable that we are only at the beginning of an extraordinary journey to utilize such small particles [of less than a dozen atoms in size] for clean energy production,” he said.

“In order to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels it is vital to explore various sustainable energy options,” Professor Orlov said. “One possible strategy is to develop a hydrogen-based energy economy, which can potentially offer numerous environmental and energy efficiency benefits. Hydrogen can conceivably be a promising energy source in the future as it is a very clean fuel, which produces water as a final combustion product. The current challenge is to find new materials, which can help to produce hydrogen from sustainable sources, such as water.”

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Brookhaven National Laboratory is a multipurpose research
institution funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. Located on
Long Island, NY, Brookhaven operates large-scale facilities for
studies in physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, applied
science, and advanced technology. The Laboratory's almost 3,000
scientists, engineers, and support staff are joined each year by
more than 5,000 visiting researchers from around the world.

One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical,
biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security.
Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry
and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE's Office of Science by Brookhaven
Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by the Research Foundation for the State
University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory
facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit applied science and technology organization.